Abstract

Zizek, more than any other thinker today, makes use of a paradoxical logic that at every turn reveals its own illogic. His “short circuits” and “parallax view” unveil the Hegelian reversals that posit that Madness is Reason run amok; that the most “normal” character can be taken as “weird,” and that the death drive may serve as both deadlock of and solution to the finite life of the flesh. This essay analyzes the connection between Zizek’s theorizing and his many examples and claims that his work follows in the tradition of Kurt Godel; the Lacanian subject must remain incomplete and its ethics undecidable. Further, I reveal how Zizek’s many examples are performative; they are the philosopher’s uniquely Hegelian way of practicing “concrete universality.” Ultimately, whereas Freud taught us how to decode the symptom, and Lacan to identify with the sinthome, Zizek teaches us that we must fully assume the paradox of our existence: “the uncanny abyss of freedom without any ontological guarantee in the Order of Being” and find a way to go on